


Prism

by Surreal



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Gen, Imported, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, tin man challenge grand prix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surreal/pseuds/Surreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Firelight revelations show Raw a new way to look at one of his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prism

Title: Prism  
Rating: G  
Summary: Firelight revelations show Raw a new way to look at one of his friends.

**

Every person gave off a rich, complex mixture of colors that went along with their emotions and personality. It wasn’t as if every particular emotion was associated with a specific color; anger was not red, nor was love a warm red glow. The flow of color was unique to each individual and it often took Raw several weeks to sort out the feel of every person he met.

More often than not, Wyatt Cain emitted a slow, mellow wave of deep gray. His moods shifted occasionally, depending on if he was alone or if he was with someone. The colors told Raw that this man was loyal and patient, passionate in ways no one but him knew about.

DG was an odd combination of swirling marble blue and deep, solid black. It had taken long moments of contemplation to figure out what it meant. Raw finally settled on perplexed curiosity and contentment to be home again.

Whenever their moods changed, the colors changed as well. DG’s happiness was yellow and bright; Cain’s was a simple, uncomplicated green. Anger was deep orange and lavender, respectively. Cain had been completely confused the day Raw started snickering in the middle of one of Cain’s fits of rage, not knowing that all Raw could see was a wispy cloud of very light purple.

Whenever someone asked Raw how he was feeling, the question always brought him up short. He had no words to explain that he never really knew if the emotions swirling in his heart were his own or those of someone nearby, nor that it mattered much to him whose they were. Raw found the familiarity of the mixed sensation soothing and welcoming.

But it was Glitch that had brought a sharp pain to the very core of Raw’s being.

For someone who wore his heart on his tattered sleeve, the very open nature of Glitch’s emotional state meant that the colors were simply not there. Raw needed to see inside someone to get a feel for their mood; with Glitch, there was no need to touch. The colors had long since leeched out, leaving only a blank white slate behind the twisting cacophony of moods that Glitch experienced on a daily basis.

Raw found Glitch’s openness disconcerting at first, uncertain how to read someone who he could not judge through colors but that he had to watch and listen to instead.

This lack of color made it that much harder to begin to understand Glitch but Raw soon figured out that he simply needed to learn to change his way of looking at the man.

Sitting around in overstuffed armchairs, enjoying the effortless ease of the company of his friends, Raw took the opportunity to lazily catalogue their colors.

DG was reading a thin, illustrated magazine by the light of a small table lamp, surrounded by a fine mist of amused green.

Sprawled on his stomach in front of the fireplace, Cain was using a small, delicate knife to absently carve curving letters into a flat piece of soft wood. A shimmer of gold glistened around him.

Looking over at his third friend, Raw narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. Glitch had settled into another of the soft chairs sideways, long legs thrown over one of the chair’s arms while the side of his head was tucked up against the seat back. The book he had been reading in the firelight was closed with two of his fingers still caught between the pages.

Asleep, Glitch seemed to have an ethereal glow to him and it took a moment for Raw to comprehend was he was seeing.

Instead of seeing one color like he always expected and looked for in a person, Glitch’s essence drew in the flickering light and scattered it into a thousand different directions in a breathtaking prism of complexity.

It was like nothing Raw had ever seen and for the first time, he realized he was finally, truly seeing Glitch. Rather than searching out the one color for one particular mood, Raw understood now that with Glitch, he needed to open his eyes and his heart in ways he never needed to before.

Raw didn’t see this as much of a hardship, but rather an intriguing new facet to his friend.

**

End.


End file.
